15th International Congress of ISCO - Book of Abstracts [antikvár]

Soil and land management under climate change Blum, W.E.H.' 'institute of Soil Research, Departinent of Forest and Soil Sciences, University ofNatural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Austria. Tel.: +43-1-47654-3101; Fax: +43-I-47654-3I30; E-mail: [email protected] Based on the six main functions of soil, the impact of climate change on the provision of goods and services for human societies and the environment is discussed, including possible impacts on civilisation. For the latter, a short introduction into the historical development of the relationship nature - human society is given, explaining the development of land use and population growth during the last 10,000 years on a worldwide level. This allows for defining the current state of human civilisation in a physical, social, economic, environmental and cultural context. Based on this, different scenarios of climate change, especially referring to changes in precipitation and annual mean temperatures are given, explaining what climate change means for the provision of surface and ground water, the development of biodiversity, especially soil biodiversity, the impact on human health and the impact on biomass production, i.e. on the food chain and food security, in view of the fact that world-wide, food is produced on 12% of the land surface, by about 25% of the world population. Different scenarios regarding the sensitivity of agro-ecosystems to global climate change are explained, showing examples for changes in rain fed cereal production as well as food produced by irrigation. Finally the impact of climate change on the chemistry of the atmosphere is discussed, together with possible further changes in the terrestrial and aquatic systems, looking into the basic views on the relationship between human beings and nature, social and economic theories and the problem of globalisation of social and economic decisions on the production and trade of agricultural and other commodities.